your desk,
and read all your papers.'

'Stole my key!' said my father, staring at me perplexed, but at the same
instant producing it. 'Stole it! Why here it is!'

'She unlocked your desk; she read your papers for ever so long. Open it
now, and see whether they have not been stirred.'

He looked at me this time in silence, with a puzzled air; but he did unlock
the desk, and lifted the papers curiously and suspiciously. As he did so
he uttered a few of those inarticulate interjections which are made with
closed lips, and not always intelligible; but he made no remark.

Then he placed me on a chair beside him, and sitting down himself, told
me to recollect myself, and tell him distinctly all I had seen. This
accordingly I did, he listening with deep attention.

'Did she remove any paper?' asked my father, at the same time making a
little search, I suppose, for that which he fancied might have been stolen.

'No; I did not see her take anything.'

'Well, you are a good girl, Maud. Act discreetly. Say nothing to
anyone--not even to your cousin Monica.'

Directions which, coming from another person would have had no great
weight, were spoken by my father with an earnest look and a weight of
emphasis that made them irresistibly impressive, and I went away with the
seal of silence upon my lips.

'Sit down, Maud, _there_. You have not been very happy with Madame de la
Rougierre. It is time you were relieved. This occurrence decides it.'

He rang the bell.

'Tell Madame de la Rougierre that I request the honour of seeing her for a
few minutes here.'

My father's communications to her were always equally ceremonious. In a
few minutes there was a knock at the door, and the same figure, smiling,
courtesying, that had scared me on the threshold last night, like the
spirit of evil, presented itself.

My father rose, and Madame having at his request taken a chair opposite,
looking, as usual in his presence, all amiability, he proceeded at once to
the point.

'Madame de la Rougierre, I have to request you that you will give me the
key now in your possession, which unlocks this desk of mine.'

With which termination he tapped his gold pencil-case suddenly on it.

Madame, who had expected something very different, became instantly so
pale, with a dull purplish hue upon her forehead, that, especially when she
had twice essayed with her white lips, in vain, to answer, I expected to
see her fall in a fit.

She was not loo